Every good revolution story at some point involves a wild car ride with cheap beer. This is how Alana and I found ourselves my last weekend in Providence: riding in a car in the middle of a snowstorm and drinking Heineken on our way to a dance club. A perfect scenario for a foreign country...except that this is the States, and our driver was a young Guatemalan man without papers. And he now had at least two open bottles of beer in his car. And in the back of my mind I was thinking, please don't let them find a reason to stop us. I would never have invited myself into such a situation but I don't often refuse a beer with new and trusted friends. (Don't worry...he didn't drink while driving).
And let's face it...there is really no other way to celebrate solidarity. I remember being in Bolivia in political marches and leaving late afternoon to go to a large hall and drink with friends, stained black with tear gas residue, smoke and sweat. But this is the States! And we know he could be arrested...in fact, I just lost a friend to a similar fate...deported home after years in the States.
But suddenly I am back in my therapist's office and she is asking me...Sarah, what makes you think you can control what happens if you flick the light switch on and off ten times? She is, of course, talking about my insistent anxiety spells. But I thought about it this week in Providence as I sat with the desire to race off and volunteer in New Bedford, or go try to save my friend in New York City from deportation, etc. How much does that speak to my white privilege, trying to save my friends? Of course, we all want to be careful, but these are their choices.
II.
Nearly one week ago, I rode the bus with ten other people to New Bedford, site of the immigration raids. I think we all felt strangely out of place, similar to a middle school field trip with another class, everyone kind of looking each other up and down in anticipation of introductions. I almost wanted to ask if anyone knew any songs for the bus. There were Salvadorans (one man with his young son), Hondurans, Guatemalans and two of us US-born. We were all traveling from Providence to New Bedford to show our support to the community there.
We started our pilgrimage with a blessing from the local priest and actually broke bread and passed it around the bus. I was traveling with my Honduran friend, Naún, from Portland, who had come down to go dancing with Alana and me. Naún and I decided on our way home, because we were so hungry and tired from the rally that that was the best bread we ever tasted.
We were very lucky to get a seat in the auditorium there, and later we saw that there were at least fifty people waiting in the outside lobby for other participants to leave so they could be seated. The turnout was amazing; people came from all over Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The rally was run by the primarily Guatemalan community in NB, so we were constantly motivated by the Maya-Quiche dance and prayer. I felt impassioned by the same native expressions I share with pagans in the States and Bolivians in the Andes: blessings to the four directions, consideration of the elements.
One man gave his testimony of that day. His voice broke as he spoke first to the confusion, then his grief at having lost his life partner and being faced with caring for their child alone. He asked the audience how they would feel if they had to leave their child. The Salvadoran man who had come with us held his young son close and wiped at his eyes while the boy looked up and wondered at the sudden affection.During the rally, the vast majority of organizers, families and professionals were Latinos. Only a small handful were actually citizens, and an even smaller handful of these Caucasian citizens were eventually escorted out because they were shouting over the speakers in protest. It took every ounce of my strength not to get up and confront them, citizen to citizen. This community had seen too much grief. But I was only one voice among many who spoke together that day. So I sat on my anger and let it compost.
III.
This is what it’s like to prepare with a friend you love for the possibility of their deportation:
We sit in his room and share anger and loss equally. We talk about what it was like when he left his country for New York.
-How did you feel when you first arrived?
-A little lost, sad, it was strange, you know.
-But you made it. And how do you think you’ll feel back in your country?
-Lost, sad…weird.
-But you will make it. It will take time. I will do whatever you need.
The lawyer’s fees, the paper trail, the official stamps and envelopes…it all comes down to this moment. We talk about what will happen if they deny his application. They may arrest him, handcuff him and take him away. He is strong about this. I am not.
-You know you are not a criminal, right?
-I know.
One of my friends from Providence described deportation as a death sentence for a family…a long, slow economic death. Sometimes the only opportunity a family has is this one. I had been reading a book my friend Monica lent me, Targeted, all about the enterprise of deportation. It sort of became my Bible for the two days I had it. I heard that Halliburton now has a contract to build more detention centers. At least someone’s making money, right?
Is there no white van (people are initially deported in white vans) I can chain my body to? Is there no one to hear our story? It feels a little like we are hoping for a last-minute phone call to save his life from this long sentence. New York outside my subway train of thought is busy and self-important. I would do anything for my friend in this moment; I feel so powerless in a city so powerful. My hand is on the switch, but I can’t make anything happen.
IV.
Back in Providence, there was one more piece of the story to complete. For those of you who know me well, you know I keep the Equinox and the Solstice, etc.
I had been sitting with all these questions of myself and my trip. I wondered about this weight I was carrying…weight of the world, the sadness I felt in my home community, expectations of myself and my work. Is this what the journey is about…letting go of this big rock of dusty old debris? Or is it about the carrying…building strong muscles on the road to continue carrying it all?
Equinox is a beautiful little sister to Solstice. I usually identify with Solstice and it’s time of the year because it is about revolution- passion and heat, or dark depths of cold and ice. But I realized that Equinox was now my gift….because it is about balancing, equal time between the seasons, transition and gentle growth or passing. We can’t be in a constant state of revolution. Once in a while we need cheap beer in the backseat of someone’s car.
Alana and I purchased cheap ceramic flower pots at the Job Lot in Providence and sat with our thoughts and chalked it all down on the terra cotta inside. As I reflected on the Equinox, I realized that there was not one single thing at the moment that I wanted to get rid of. I wanted to be grateful for the lessons, the struggle, time to put two hands on my teacup and think. For the weeding I did in Mary’s garden, for the skeletal remains of its plant leaves that made delicate winter lace, for the harvest in reverse, the uncovering of a luscious spread of browned stalks and rich dirt. Alana and I chose our war cry and smashed our pots on the banks of a river there. I offered all those pieces of my year to be mosaiced into some new beginning.
And so I cut my hair…inches and inches of it. I got it cut in a little Mexican place in Yonkers, NY, where the woman was very aggrieved at having to cut such long blonde hair. But how could I hold on to this physical weight when I wanted to keep flying?
This is how I arrived to Washington DC- with very short hair and spring on my mind.
Note: If you are interested in helping the community in New Bedford to recover from the immigration raids, there is still work to do! You can contact the Catholic Relief Services at 508-997-7337, or the Community Economic Development Center at 508-979-4684. They are looking in particular for bilingual people to help accompany people or work with the relief agencies. They are also still looking for donations. All families are sacred!
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